Kate and Gerry McCann have posted a heartbreaking Facebook message to missing daughter Madeleine on her 14th birthday today.

They wrote alongside a touching photo of her as a three-year-old: “Happy 14th Birthday, Madeleine! We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”

Kate will mark the occasion privately at home by laying presents in Madeleine’s bedroom, which she hopes her daughter will one day be back to open.

She has described how she carefully chose gifts to reflect Madeleine’s age as a young teenager.

Kate, 49, said in TV interview last week: “I do all the present buying.

“I think about what age she is and buy something that, whenever we find her, will still be appropriate so there’s a lot of thought goes into it.”

Ex-GP and now medical worker Kate, 49, and heart doctor husband Gerry, 48, will also pray for their daughter’s safe return during a low key family “celebration.”

Gifts and cards will be placed in Maddie’s pretty pink bedroom with starred ceiling which has become a shrine to her and remains unchanged since she vanished during a family holiday in Portugal in May 2007.

They will be among presents stacked up from ten years of birthdays and Christmases – occasions which Kate describes as difficult times because “that’s when you really feel her absence.”

Kate and Gerry hold on to a glimmer of hope that Madeleine could still be alive.

They will pray for her on her birthday, and their 12-year-old twins Sean and Amelie will blow out candles on their big sister’s cake.

A family pal said: “They’re having a get together with a few friends and family to remember Madeleine on her birthday.

“There will be prayers and quiet reflection but also a cake and presents to mark her 14th birthday.

“It’s a poignant time for the family coming so soon after the tenth anniversary but they remain hopeful and vow to never to give up the search.”

Madeleine’s birthday comes just nine days after a moving church service to mark the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.

The couple felt “uplifted and comforted” as they gathered with family, friends and locals to remember their daughter in their home village of Rothley, Leics.

Kate still spends precious moments each day in Madeleine’s bedroom which she reveals has “shocking pink walls and stars on the ceiling” and where her dolls and teddies are on display, along with a growing number of presents.

The mum said she could never ignore Madeleine’s birthday and the family “still celebrates her being part of our lives”.

She also told how in her mind’s eye how she jumps from seeing her eldest child as she was when she was kidnapped to envisaging her as she would be now.

Kate told how Maddie is still a strong presence in their home, where the huge front gates are still adorned with green and yellow floral ribbons symbolising hope and solidarity.

She said: “Everything’s the same and there are photographs all around the house. Whether it be a birthday, family occasion or even an achievement that is when you really feel her absence.”

The anguished mum described last Wednesday’s decade anniversary as “a horrible marker of stolen time because we should have been a family of five for all that time.”

Madeleine’s great uncle Brian said the couple had been “uplifted and comforted” by the simple evening church service.

The Rev Rob Galdstone, vicar of the Anglican Church of St Mary and St John Church, told worshippers: “There is no evidence Madeleine has died. We encourage Kate and Gerry in faith, hope, strength, perseverance and courage.”

He told how Maddie had been due to attend De Lisle College in neighbouring Loughborough and the school was still holding a place for her.

He said: “She would be in Year 10 and they welcome her return home.”

Kate and Gerry are said to be buoyed up by Scotland Yard’s “real progress” in trying to find their daughter’s kidnappers.

The Met Police revealed they are still pursuing “critical” leads.

Madeleine was snatched after she was left sleeping with her twin siblings at the family's holiday flat in the Algarve’s Praia da Luz.

At the time her parents were dining with pals at a nearby resort tapas restaurant.

Detectives believe she was stolen by child traffickers or sex fiends, or during a burglary gone wrong.

Kate said of the £12million Met probe: “It might not be as quick as we want but there’s real progress being made and I think we need to take heart from that.”